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Pain—and relief from pain
In a previous entry I told of my visit to the hospital yesterday where I received a second celiac plexus nerve block because the first one had worn off. It has not taken effect yet. The pain is probably not due to worsening cancer but to scar tissue left on the outside of the intestine by tumors that had earlier been killed by the chemotherapy; and the scar tissue is pressing on the celiac plexus nerve and that is what is causing the pain. Also I could not take the tranquilizer adivan (or ativan) last night which I’ve taken for the last three days and which had been very effective, while also weakening me extremely; the reason was that during the procedure they gave me another powerful adivan-related tranquilizer and I could not take both. All last night I endured terrible pain. This morning I could take and did start taking the adivan again, but, in another hellish twist, it also has not taken effect. The present pain in my gut is about 75 percent of the unbearable pain I had in early February. It varies between just barely endurable and unendurable. The first nerve block took a full day to take effect. I hope the second one will do the same and the pain will pass today, but there’s no guarantee of that. In fact the doctor said there’s a 25 percent chance it won’t take effect at all. Maybe this is an illogical statement, but I feel that no one should have to experience pain like this. It’s beyond the capacity of a human being. The reader from San Diego yesterday told me that I’m courageous, tough, and a hero. That’s not true. Right now all I want is a pill or shot to make me unconscious.
UPDATE, 4:15 p.m.: My friend Bjorn Larsen, international sofware entrepreneur and anti-Islamization activist extraordinaire, visited me today with his fiancé Michelle, who hales from Texas, though now they live in Tennessee, from which they flew to visit me. Before they arrived, around noon, I was worried whether I could handle it, given my Job-like, multidimensional wretchedess. But it worked out fine. Either the adivan kicked in or else the nerve block began to take effect—we’re not sure which it was, maybe both. We had a fun and affectionate get-together until 4 p.m., though I didn’t eat anything all day and spent most of my time reclining on the living room couch. Email entry |